


it hurts to want everything

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [27]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood As Lube, Chains, Claiming, Confinement, Daddy Kink, Dominance, Established Relationship, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Underage Sex, Punishment, Rough Sex, Sex Magic, Sexual Slavery, Sounding, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:21:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21998170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: After Ephram decided that Freddie and Ruby should break up, Freddie left the house in Jamara to live at the Stonefruit Inn, his and Iann Cardero's new business venture. It's been some time and Ephram's had enough. He goes to the Stonefruit to reclaim his husband -- and it rapidly escalates to Freddie being borne forcibly back home, chained down and locked up, for Ephram to physically ... violently ... remind him where exactly he belongs.
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673
Kudos: 2





	it hurts to want everything

**Author's Note:**

> >   
>  Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)  
> 

_[FREDDIE TXT] Have you got time for lunch today, darling? I miss you._  
  
TXT: I got time. I’ll bring your ring back too.  
  
 _[FREDDIE TXT] Wonderful. :)_  
 _[TXT[ The ring can just go back with the rest of my jewellery though, love. I mean, with things as they are, and Ruby so adamant about not wearing hers… maybe it’s just better off in there._  
  
TXT: Alright then.  
TXT: You want to meet somewhere or you gonna come to the station?  
TXT: Or I want to see your inn, that would work too  
  
 _[FREDDIE TXT] You can come to the inn if you like, sweetheart. I’ll give you the tour. :)_  
 _[TXT] Is everything alright though? You sound a bit… off._  
  
Ephram chewed his lip when the second text came through, weighing out how to answer it best. He’d been trying very hard to not come off brusque with either Freddie or Ruby, but when he was in such an intimate state of flux it made him a little broody because he was thinking about it _all the time_.  
  
TXT: Can’t get anything past you honey <3 The one downside to you knowing me so dang well  
TXT: I’m close by. I’ll be there in a few.  
  
And maybe talking face to face would seem less stilted and hesitant than his texting at the moment.  
  
It only took about ten minutes for Ephram to hustle himself on foot to the Stonefruit, where he stood outside boggling at the design with a painful swell of pride before making his way into the foyer and sweeping off his hat.  
  
Freddie frowned slightly when Ephram’s reply materialized, unsure quite what to make of it. Wondering whether to be pleased to see the return of more affectionate language, or concerned that Ephram was upset with him.  
  
Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Or upset was the wrong word. Given their new world order Freddie wasn’t even how to qualify wrongness anymore…  
  
He was starting to think maybe he’d never known, and that was part of the problem.  
  
 _[FREDDIE TXT] Alright. <3 I’ll have the front desk keep an eye out for you, darling; and if I’m not in the lobby when you get here, I promise I won’t be long._  
  
And he wasn’t.  
  
Freddie and Iann stepped out of the lift together only about five minutes after Ephram had arrived - Freddie summoned by the staff, and Iann on route to both replace a blown light-bulb, and check on a sluggish tap behind the bar in the lounge. They were chatting back and forth, laughing quietly about the extremely elderly couple in the Garden Suite whose naturism had caught the lad who’d delivered their room service that morning quite by surprise, leaning against one another, Freddie clutching Iann’s arm. But when he saw Ephram waiting, the fairy pressed a quick kiss to his partner’s cheek, reminding him to text when he heard back from their suppliers regarding the booster chairs, high chairs, and fold-away cots they’d ordered, and headed in his husband’s direction.  
  
“Hello, darling,” he said softly, feeling a sharp pang of homesickness as he looked at his witch; putting his arms around him, and holding him for slightly longer than was strictly necessary, wanting to just breathe him in for a moment. “Have you been waiting long?”  
  
The elevator looked like a ritzy version of the old service elevators Ephram had used on a dozen interchangeable warehouse jobs, and for a few moments that held his attention. Then he saw Freddie and felt his face light up, a smile tugging at his lips; how _dumb_ had it been to worry that things might be weird between them, ever? Everything in Ephram called out to wrap Freddie in his arms and kiss him senseless.  
  
But the smile melted as the seconds ticked on, replaced by a divot between Ephram’s eyebrows as he watched the interplay between the two innkeepers. Iann was Freddie’s friend, yeah, and despite his multiple misgivings about that, Ephram had generally kept his own counsel and trusted that Freddie could choose his own friends. _Friends_. Not whatever … _this_ was. Ephram had seen Freddie be affectionate with other people – hell, he’d seen Freddie do a damn sight _more_ than that with other people – but he knew the difference. There was an unmistakeable electricity between Cardero and Freddie.  
  
It was only the feel of Freddie’s solid, warm body against his and that beloved voice saying hello that distracted Ephram’s mind from replaying that cheek kiss in lingering repeat. Was it really as intimate as he’d interpreted it? Had Freddie stayed a moment longer than he might have? Did Cardero look slightly smug as he glanced uninterestedly at Ephram?  
  
(Well, that last one was a no-brainer; The Pornstache _always_ looked smug.)  
  
“No, not long,” Ephram mumbled once Iann was out of view, his own feeling of loneliness without Freddie acting as a buffer for all of that. It was _because_ Freddie had been away that Ephram had these thoughts, that must be it. He leaned down abruptly and claimed Freddie’s lips, searching, wanting to see if he could taste another man on them.  
  
“Good,” Freddie murmured, “I-”  
  
But whatever else he might have thought to say as a follow-up was swallowed when Ephram ducked his head and captured the fairy’s mouth; kissing him with the kind of depth that stole Freddie’s breath, and made the hours and days they’d been apart feel even longer and lonelier than they already had. And Freddie moaned softly, unable to help himself, or hold back; returning the kiss with a hungry sort of relief to once again be in the arms of his man - not caring that his employees were looking on - his hands coming up to tangle in Ephram’s too-long blond hair.  
  
Because for all his keenly honed observance, and his attention to detail, Freddie had only barely registered the look on Ephram’s face as he’d watched Freddie and Iann come off the lift and say goodbye. He’d been too happy to see him, too anxious to touch him and be close to him, to have seen the slightly suspicious concern in his husband’s eyes - and all he could think of now was how good it was to have him here.  
  
And how very very much he’d been missing him.  
  
“How long do I have you for?” the fairy asked a little breathlessly once they’d separated again, though Freddie had refused to put any sort of distance between them. “Are you hungry - or should I show you around first?”  
  
“Honestly, I feel like its been eons since I’ve seen you, love… It’s been awful.”  
  
“It’s been awful,” Ephram agreed, licking his bottom lip and drawing it under his teeth as he fixed a level, dark-blue stare on Freddie. “Ain’t no reason for you to _be_ here, after all. Like you got chased out your own house.”  
  
He left that where it was. Even though Ephram could feel the high-strung tension in his long muscles that made its way there when he was perturbed or pissed off or upset, he didn’t want to start a fight. He’d had precious little time with his husband over the past while and that … wasn’t normal. Ephram knew that Freddie had come to be a major part of his life, but he hadn’t realized how gaping a hole would be left if they were apart, even in the same damn town.  
  
Shrugging at the other question that Freddie had posed, Ephram suggested, “Maybe you could just fix me up a sandwich or something? Then we could walk round and you can show me stuff while I eat.” And hopefully that would distract Ephram from the churning in his gut, the faint unease he was feeling. It would be a shame if that were to keep him from admiring his Freddie’s hard work.  
  
Still trying to work through the tumult inside him, Ephram gathered Freddie close again and kissed his brow, then his nose, then his lips, his own eyes slowly closing. “I’m alone in that big ol bedroom,” he confided, a mournful tone to his voice. “We figured it was best to sleep in separate rooms but–”  
  
Ephram took a breath, then straightened up and waved his Stetson in the vague direction of the kitchen. “Anyhow. Lead on?”  
  
Freddie felt the weight of Ephram’s eyes as his witch looked down at him, telling him there was no reason for his self-imposed exile; feeling guilty for having stayed away longer than he’d intended, but unsure what else to do. How else to cope when things had become so… awkward at home.  
  
He knew that Ephram wasn’t happy though - even if Freddie hadn’t been able to see it so clearly in the stormy blue of his husband’s stare, there was no denying the tautness of his muscles, or the edgy strain evident in the lines around his eyes and the corners of his mouth.  
  
And that unhappiness had a weight all its own.  
  
The fairy’s hand moved without thinking to the open neck of his shirt, and the collar there - glamoured invisible again for the sake of propriety - and sighed. Just wanting to be home again, with Ephram. Wanting everything to be simpler than it was.  
  
“I don’t mean to stay away, sweetheart,” he said softly, “Not from you. I just… I don’t know. Things are so strange now…”  
  
But when Ephram suggested a sandwich, Freddie brightened as best he could, and nodded his head. “Yeah - yeah, of course, love,” he said, “We’ll head up to the kitchen, get you sorted with something to eat, and then I’ll show you around a bit. I mean, we’ve guests in most of the rooms at the moment, but there’s at least a few vacancies.”  
  
He smiled. “You’ll get the general idea, any road.”  
  
But then, before he could take Ephram’s hand and lead him off towards the lift, Freddie found himself pulled close again, melting against his husband’s chest as he turned his face up to meet the gentle press of his kisses - though the fairy’s brow furrowed in dismayed confusion to hear that Ephram had been sleeping alone.  
  
“I thought you’d have been with Ruby,” he murmured, “Without me there, I thought…”  
  
“…I don’t know what I thought,” he said finally, shaking his head. “I just know that I barely sleep at all because you’re not here to reach for.”  
  
But when Ephram told him to lead on, Freddie nodded again and did exactly that; threading their fingers together and drawing Ephram into the lift.  
  
“What do you think of it all so far though, darling?” he asked, gesturing idly at Stonefruit as a whole before hitting the button for the bistro. “Do you like it?”  
  
“Well now you know what to think.” Ephram said, some irritation roughening his voice again; although he was making a concerted effort not to let his simmering aggravation and hurt show, he’d never been good at concealing things like that.  
  
Ephram waited until they were in the lift, though, before turning to Freddie and spanning his hand across his fairy’s throat – he hadn’t missed Freddie’s touching his collar, and he wanted his hand against it, feeling the mark of ownership he'd put there.  
  
Freddie’s eyes widened slightly at the sharpness of Ephram’s tone, his obvious annoyance and bruised feelings showing through, and the fairy bit his lip for a moment, abashed. “I suppose I do, yeah,” he murmured softly. “And I’m sorry, love. For staying away so long, and for making you so angry with me.”  
  
The doors of the lift had barely shut though - Freddie’s questions about his husband’s impressions of the hotel having barely passed his lips - when suddenly Ephram’s hand was at his throat. And immediately, Freddie’s heart started to race; his breathing coming just a little bit faster as his muscles tensed, eyes locked on Ephram’s.  
  
His body’s instinctive reaction to being touched this way - to even the threat of compression - was a defensive sort of anxiety, a fight or flight spike of discomfort; but the fairy took a long slow breath and forced himself to stay where he was, his trust in Ephram doing its best to suppress everything else as his husband started to speak.  
  
“You and Ruby ain’t interchangeable. And I ain’t so fickle or fuckin’ basic that all’s I’m wanting for is any warm body next to mine. When I want Ruby, she’s there for me. And when I want you…” Ephram slid his hand lower, to firmly press against Freddie’s chest and push him to the wall, and leaned in close to one pointed ear. “I want _you_.”  
  
“I know we aren’t,” he said, his voice quiet even in the silence of the lift, though there was a tremble of relief there when Ephram’s hand finally came down off his throat to push him against the wall. “And I know you don’t. You’re neither of those things, sweetheart - it wasn’t my intention to imply otherwise.”  
  
“…are you telling me you want me to come home, Ephram?” Freddie asked thickly, the warm lick of his witch’s breath in his ear having already stirred embers of arousal low in his belly; though the adrenalised panic of a few moments before had yet to ebb entirely away, his heart thumping and his pulse racing.  
  
Ephram stayed there for the shaking course of a few minutes, breathing in the scent of Freddie’s cologne and feeling his husband’s heart pound beneath his palm. It would be so easy to give in to his baser instincts and fuck Freddie right here (Ephram was pretty damn sure Freddie wouldn’t refuse him) but that came dangerously close to mixing sex with anger, and Ephram didn’t want to even crack that door.  
  
So instead he stepped back, returning them to standing side-by-side and holding hands, and set his hat back on as he said, “I like it lots. You done an amazing job with it, honey, it comes through real clear how much thought and effort you put into fixin’ up this place. You ain’t gonna have any slow seasons, that’s for sure.”  
  
It was more than a bit jarring.  
  
“I… thank-you, love,” Freddie said haltingly, feeling slightly wrong-footed; off-kilter and penitent. Frustrated, yet eager to please. But he squared his shoulders slightly and smoothed it all away and out of sight, keeping a weather eye on his husband. Prepared to take his cues as they came, and waiting for Ephram to stop holding back.  
  
So when the doors opened again, and the two of them made their way into the bistro, all the fairy asked was, “Would you like to sit on the terrace while I fetch you something, darling? Or would you prefer to join me in the kitchen? It’s a bit quiet now, so we shouldn’t be too much in the way…”  
  
“I’ll come into the kitchen with you.” Ephram let go of Freddie’s hand, but only to press it into the small of his husband’s back, the touch heavy and possessive. “I’m feeling sorter like I shouldn’t be letting you out of my sight.”  
  
“Alright,” Freddie said softly, frustrated with himself that the weight of Ephram’s hand on his back, the ownership it implied, made his heart beat faster, even as the flat tone of his husband’s voice, the obvious upset lurking just beneath the calm, sent worry crawling up his spine.  
  
He hated that Ephram was angry with him. Hated that he’d allowed all this mess with Ruby to spill over into everything else, and that his witch didn’t seem to want to understand why he’d been staying away…  
  
The comment hadn't been delivered angrily, but it lacked most of Ephram’s usual warmth and humour, the chuckle he would have delivered it with. There was too much prickly truth to it for real amusement and besides, Ephram could feel hurt anger building inside him with each passing moment. Freddie clearly knew that Ephram wanted him home, was eager to hear it and to comply, but he hadn’t flickered so much as a wing in a homeward direction until now.  
  
And none of the reasons Ephram could come up with for why was easy to linger on.  
  
The kitchen was bright and bustling, the aromas of various dishes lighting the air with flavours that ordinarily Ephram would be delighted by. Not now, though; now for the first time he could remember, he didn’t have much of an appetite. And the thought of forcing himself to eat with all of these wretched thoughts scrabbling in his head made his belly twist in protest.  
  
Taking Freddie’s arm, Ephram drew him aside so they were in a quiet corner by the produce fridge before Freddie could do anything more than smile politely at the staff and murmur an apology for the intrusion - the chef and her crew immediately developing situational myopia, heads down and on task without a word. And when Ephram spoke, his voice shot through with both pain and pique, the fairy’s eyes widened before his face fell into a wounded sort of contrition.  
  
“Why are you still here?” Ephram asked, hurt making its way to his voice along with the vexation. “Why’re you still here, Freddie, when we both know you should be home with me? Is it that you think I’m gonna adjust to life without you there? Or maybe you’re trying to test me and see if I’ll prefer Ruby over you?”  
  
“I’m still here,” Freddie said in a hushed voice, “-because every time I see Ruby I haven’t the first bloody idea what to say to her; and because I’m afraid that if I don’t say anything she’ll take the opportunity to tell me _again_ that she never meant to hurt me, and my head will finally explode.”  
  
“I’m here because I don’t want to face having to sleep alone at night because it isn’t my ‘turn’ to be with you. I’m here-” Freddie’s voice shook, and he cut himself off, taking a deep breath, and letting it out slowly before lowering his volume again, looking up at Ephram imploringly. “Don’t you think that I _want_ to be home with you, love? That’s _all_ I want. But I’m selfish, and I’m ill-equipped, and I’m hurt. And I’m scared too, yeah? Of sharing you like this. Of what happens now.”  
  
“Because the last thing in the world I want is for you to adjust to life without me, Ephram. And I’m not flaming _testing_ you-” the fairy’s voice rose slightly, frustration rasping his words, “-but I just… I just _do_ things, don’t I? I couldn’t stand to watch her cry in your arms that night, so I left. Because I’m _like_ that. I’m dramatic, and awful, and I want you to notice when I’m gone. I want you to miss me, and to want me to come home again. Or maybe I want-”  
  
Ephram drew back suddenly – as much as he could – the pain in his voice turning to something colder. “Or maybe you like it better here, with Cardero,” he growled, jaw working. “You two don’t hold back on kissing and touching on each other, huh? Even right in front of me. Even with goddamn Cardero giving me a look like he already got a place on his wall set up so now he’s caught you, he can _mount_ you.” Ephram’s lip curled on the innuendo, his breath coming fast with emotion – despite the lift of his chin so he could stare impassively down his long nose at Freddie.  
  
When Ephram pulled away - his hurt of before freezing into something harder and more aggressive - blaming Iann for Freddie’s protracted absence from Jamara, jealousy radiating off him in waves, the fairy just gaped at him, his mouth falling open. Stunned - even as his blood began to rush.  
  
“Ephram,” he said, stepping closer and reaching for him, “-sweetheart, Iann and I aren’t lovers. We never _have_ been. He hasn’t done anything but snore in my ear for a week while I’ve been tossing and turning and wishing for you.”  
  
Freddie pressed his hands to his husband’s chest, staring up at him. “You’re the only man that I want to be with. I belong to _you_.”  
  
“You expect me to believe,” Ephram said incredulously, “that you been sharing a goddamn _bed_ with Cardero all this time and ain’t screwed him? Not even so much as a handjob or kissing with tongue or touching on each other? Or d’you only do that in public so far?”   
  
“Listen to me, please sweetheart,” Freddie said, his voice still soft and low, blue eyes holding Ephram’s, “-Iann and I have never been lovers. No matter what you may think - no matter what you believe you saw - we aren’t. And we never _have_ been. He’s never-” The fairy cut himself off, realizing that he’d inadvertently stepped into what apparently counted as dangerous territory now - the specifics.  
  
What was he going to say? Iann’s never… what? Seen me naked? He had. Never kissed me? He most _definitely_ had. Touched me? The two of them touched one another in affection almost constantly…  
  
 _Iann’s never made me cum?_  
  
Freddie couldn’t even say that much. Iann had made him cum in front of an _audience_.  
  
But all the same, Freddie was telling Ephram the truth. Despite their blurred lines, Iann had no interest in him sexually - so while they were a great many things to one another, their partnership had never extended to the physical.  
  
And even if it had, Ephram’s place as Freddie’s husband - as the man he’d pledged his heart and his life to - would never, and _could_ never, have been threatened. The fairy had told Iann before that Ephram was the only thing he was certain that he would always want - and that certainty was absolute.  
  
That Ephram was this upset over Iann, over the prospect of Freddie’s having touched him and been with him, was just- it was unexpected, certainly. But it was very much more than that too.  
  
Ephram took one of Freddie’s hands by the wrist and bent the fairy’s arm until Ephram was holding that wrist pinned in the small of Freddie’s back, bringing them even closer. “You been selfish long enough,” Ephram said, his mouth pressed against Freddie’s temple. “I let you stay here on account of I knew you’d had your feelings hurt and things was sore between you and Ruby. I figured this was your place of business, at least you’d be kept busy and wouldn’t have time to get sulky.” Ephram was quiet for a moment or two before murmuring, “…but I was wrong, wasn’t I? You just kept on staying here languishing and feeling sorry for yourself even though all you was getting accomplished was squandering time you ‘n me could’ve been spending together.”  
  
Freddie bit his lip slightly as the heat of desire kindled low in his belly; knowing that he should be ashamed of how good it felt to see his importance to Ephram show itself this way, ashamed to take any pleasure in his witch’s jealousy - but he couldn’t help it. Ephram had claimed him, and Freddie loved to see him exercise the rights that that claim afforded.  
  
Loved to see how much it mattered that Freddie was his. Still a little awestruck that he could be loved this way by such an incredible man.  
  
But before the fairy had been able to come up with an adequate way to finish his sentence, Ephram had bent his arm behind his back and pressed him closer, telling him that his sojourn at Stonefruit had come to an end, that Ephram was putting a stop to it. Chastising him for acting like a child and depriving them of time together in a voice that went straight to Freddie’s cock - even as it shamed him.  
  
Letting go of Freddie roughly, Ephram instead pressed his palm against the produce fridge, effectively blocking Freddie into their little space. “I’m done waiting,” he said simply – with an edge of threat to it, even. “If you wanna fuss yourself over invented troubles like me having you and Ruby take _turns_ and put me through hell sleeping in another man’s bed because you wanted to know if I’d miss you and want you back home, well.”  
  
Ephram stepped out of the small space, pushing up his sleeves to his elbows before he grabbed hold of Freddie and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “You can do that back where you fuckin' _belong_.” Doggedly ignoring the kitchen staff (who ignored him right back, although the chef did send a prep cook to find Mr. Cardero fast and let him know what was happening), Ephram moved towards the door. “You belong back home,” he muttered. “You belong with me. You belong _to_ me.”  
  
Freddie’s cheeks flushed pink as he was let go again, and he sucked in a startled breath at the manhandling, dropping his eyes as he murmured, “I’m sorry, love. I-” before his ability to speak was stolen entirely. Shocked, he let out an indignant sort of squeak as he was picked up and tossed over Ephram’s shoulders, his husband carrying him bodily from the room. But he didn’t argue. Didn’t struggle.  
  
He was going home and that was all there was to it. Ephram had spoken.  
  
And Freddie would do as he was told; his prick aching where it was pressed against his lover’s shoulder.  
  
They made their way through the bistro, drawing a flurry of perplexed interest and a wave of whispers in their wake, and out to the lift, the doors opening just in time for Ollie to arrive on the landing after climbing the stairs. The little Chin moved in front of Ephram, a hard warning look in his eyes as he gazed up at him - and then, after a long moment, he stood aside, giving the witch a small incline of his head.  
  
He knew that Freddie was safe with Ephram. And this wasn’t any of his concern.  
  
\--- ---  
  
Neither of them had said much on the drive home.  
  
Ephram stayed in stony, grim silence and Freddie seemed to hardly want to breathe too loud. And yet, despite the heavy atmosphere of Ephram’s disapproving anger, the thick desire that accompanied it – and Freddie’s already aroused state – was undeniable to them both.  
  
When Ephram hauled Freddie into one of the bigger, more isolated bedrooms and threw him on the bed, the next thing he did was lock the door. The sound was loud and final in the empty house, and Ephram pointed at Freddie. “Don’t you even think of fuckin’ moving,” he ordered, going into the ensuite.  
  
As serendipity would have it, Ephram had been accumulating … stuff … in this room for a little while now, biding his time until the right opportunity came up to put them into use. He hadn’t been sure if he even would ever use them, but they’d been good imagination fodder.  
  
Now they’d be more than that.  
  
He made no attempt to be quiet about opening drawers and cupboards, the sounds of sharp metal, the clank of pieces of chain. Freddie would be hearing it all and trying to figure out what he was to be subjected to, and the thought of that – his husband’s heart speeding up, his breathing following – caused the same in Ephram, feeding off each others’ reactions.  
  
Ephram hadn’t said another word after they’d left the bistro, just carried Freddie out of the hotel and deposited him in the passenger seat of the pool car he’d been driving, getting behind the wheel and pointing them in the direction of Jamara; everything pulled taut between them, heightened by the witch’s anger and a raw churning sense of sexuality.  
  
And Freddie had sat as still and as quiet as he could, deferential and obedient, his cock hard and leaking, and making a mess of his pants inside his trousers.  
  
But now that they were home - now that Freddie had been marched upstairs to the room furthest away from the main thoroughfare of the house; now that he’d been thrown down on the bed and locked in - Ephram was talking again.  
  
Sort of.  
  
So the fairy did as he was told - he didn’t move a muscle. He just laid there, his heart thumping and his mouth dry, watching as Ephram disappeared into the bathroom; the noises that followed making his eyes widen.  
  
He had no idea what Ephram intended to do with him. Not beyond the obvious assumption that he was about to be punished - and the sound of metal-on-metal had his imagination running wild, his bottom lip reddened as he bit at it.  
  
Freddie wasn’t frightened - he could never be frightened of Ephram - but still, a punishment was a punishment, and his witch was very angry with him…  
  
Whatever was coming, he knew, it wasn’t going to be easy.  
  
When Ephram came out, he held up the long chain and ankle shackle so Freddie could see it. “You ain’t leaving this room for a few days, Freddie,” he said. “And you ain’t getting free of this bed. This is where you belong, and I intend to remind you of it.” He moved to the bed, fastening the end of the chain at the bottom of one heavy bedpost and then yanking off one of Freddie’s shoes and socks, clamping the cuff shut on his ankle. Immediately, it wound tight and close with no visible way to open it; Ephram had gotten it from a sex magic shop, and it was only witch magic that could put it on or remove it.  
  
“I’ll feed you and wash you when I think you deserve it,” Ephram went on, his voice gruff and rumbling. “The rest of the time, boy, all you’re getting is my cum.” He produced a gleaming hunting knife and began cutting Freddie’s clothes off in strong, fast strokes, as though he were field-stripping a deer. “I’m gonna fuck you now, Freddie, fuck you so hard you gonna pass out by the time I’m done with you. And you gonna take it all, like the good slutty lil boy I know you can be. _My_ boy. _Mine_.”  
  
Freddie’s mouth fell open, a small gasp escaping through his parted lips. But still, he didn’t move. He stayed frozen, just the way he’d been instructed, his eyes wide as he watched Ephram lock him to the bed; his husband explaining that he had no intention of allowing Freddie to be anywhere else for a good long while.  
  
The cuff was tight, but not painful, and the fairy accepted immediately the absolute truth of Ephram’s statement: he wasn’t going anywhere. Not until Ephram chose to move him again. And he was tempted to tug on it, to test the weight of the chain holding him - not out of any desire to escape, but just to explore the limits of his current reality - but he didn’t. He hadn’t yet been told that he could move.  
  
And besides, Ephram was still speaking, and Freddie felt certain he should be paying attention.  
  
His heart still pounding, he listened as his witch explained that all of his rights and privileges had been indefinitely suspended, contingent on his good behaviour and Ephram’s benevolence-  
  
…and then the knife came out, and the world narrowed even further.  
  
The fairy caught his breath, holding it as his clothes were cut away and yanked off, the chill of the blade raising gooseflesh when it grazed his skin; and when he was entirely naked, the shreds of his ruined suit all over the floor, his prick exposed as the slut that it was, he nodded to show that he understood, a barely audible, “Yes, sir,” all that he thought it wise to venture until he had a firmer grasp of what was allowed from here on out.  
  
At this point in his life, Freddie was certain he’d been fucked in every conceivable way that he could be - but only one man had ever managed to fuck him into unconsciousness, and that had been a very long time ago.  
  
But looking at Ephram now - at the smouldering rage still so hot in his eyes; at the undeniable need to reclaim what was his so clear in the set of his shoulders - Freddie had no doubt that by the time his witch was finished, an exhausted black-out would seem like a kindness.  
  
The head of his cock was flushed a dark pink, slick with needy painful arousal, and Freddie took a deep breath, still watching his husband surreptitiously from beneath his lashes.  
  
Waiting.  
  
Almost trembling as the seconds stretched out between them.  
  
“You can talk now, if you want,” Ephram said, stepping closer to Freddie, smoothing his hand over his fairy’s soft brown hair and stroking his thumb against one tender earlobe. Pissed as he was, Ephram knew his husband needed these little check-ins, periodic breaths of air to reassure him that Ephram hadn’t been caught up in reducing him to purely a sex object. It wasn’t a consideration that Ephram found onerous in the slightest, to pause for a moment of sheer adoration and see the way that it made Freddie’s eyes ease of any concern. “You can make noises. In fact, I _want_ you to make noise, whatever comes out of you. That belongs to me too, Freddie, all of the sounds that you make.”  
  
He removed his hand then, delivering a heavy slap to Freddie’s thigh. “On your knees. Cross your wrists and hang on to the headboard.” Ephram unbuckled his belt, his fingers stilling only as long as it took him to rumble, “…and get a good grip, there, because I’m gonna ride you hard, gonna use you like the whore you are.” Ephram undid his fly, pushed down his underwear, but didn’t get undressed; as he climbed onto the bed behind Freddie he intoned, “Look at you, bare buck nekkid with your cock drippin’ for me to fuck you. You ain’t getting no clothes, neither, for all the time you’re in here.”  
  
Freddie let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding when Ephram reached out to pet him - a brief moment of tenderness to show that beneath his husband’s anger, the bedrock of his love remained unchanged and unshaken - and he nodded again, repeating, “Yes, sir,” in a stronger voice, before the sharp slap to the bare flesh of his thigh made him hiss, the reddened handprint left behind still stinging as he turned over to follow instructions.  
  
The chain attached to his ankle announced itself again as Freddie moved, and the fairy planted his knees wide, tightening his grip on the headboard when the metallic clank of Ephram’s belt-buckle joined the atonal chime of his restraints. Eyes forward, knuckles white, on display for Daddy’s approval - his muscles taut and his heart pounding as he felt his witch come up behind him, the bed shifting under the additional weight while a nervous sort of hunger crawled up Freddie’s spine.  
  
His wings were still folded against his back, vibrating with tense anticipation; needy cock painting sticky trails across his belly, his balls hanging heavy and vulnerable between the spread of his legs. And when Ephram proclaimed that clothes were a luxury Freddie was no longer entitled to, the fairy could only breathe his agreement, managing a strained, “No, sir.”  
  
Ephram tucked his nose behind Freddie’s ear so his muttered words were close, hot, and wrapped his fingers around Freddie’s cock, throttling it hard. “I need you available for me to come in here and take you on a moment’s whim,” he continued. “You better be ready for it. You wanna flit off and stay in another man’s bed for days on end, then you gotta be prepared to be Daddy’s own lil fucktoy when I bring you back.”  
  
When Ephram pressed up close, taking hold of Freddie’s cock hard enough to make him yelp, pain and pleasure colliding in his witch’s fiercely proprietary grip, it began to dawn on Freddie that this wasn’t going to be even remotely close to the sort of hard fuck he’d taken from Ephram in the past.  
  
Ephram didn’t intend to simply exhaust him - he intended to _raze_ Freddie and rebuild him. All in his own good time.  
  
“I’ll be ready, Daddy,” the fairy promised, his voice thick; breathing already laboured as Ephram squeezed him. “I’ll be good. Naked and waiting, just like I should be. Your fucktoy… your plaything, to use however you like…” He rocked forward into the unforgiving clench of Ephram’s hand on his cock, and then back again, pushing his ass against the thick demanding erection behind him. “Your own dirty little boy…”  
  
Taking his hand back, Ephram licked his palm. Instantly his mouth flooded at the taste of Freddie, bright and salty in this holding stage of arousal, and he ducked down to spread his husband’s ass open and spit on his hole, giving it a couple of thrusts with his fingers and then spitting again. That was all that Freddie was going to get.  
  
Freddie whimpered when Ephram let him go again, hanging his head as his arse was pulled open, the warm spatter of spit against his hole making his knees feel weak - but when his witch’s fingers pushed inside him, blunt and insistent, Freddie choked out a moan of discomfort, biting his lip hard enough to taste blood.  
  
…The second splash though, had him girding himself as best he could; his grip on the headboard making his hands ache, knowing that the burn of a few fingers had nothing on the stretch of a cock.  
  
Freddie couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone so long without being seen to - sharing a bed with Iann and the constant pace of the inn hadn’t left either the time, or the opportunity, for so much as a satisfying wank or the use of a good toy - and in spite of the way his prick continued to throb, and the shaking desire he felt for Ephram, Freddie couldn’t help the apprehension making his heart race.  
  
Because as much as he wanted what was coming, it was _absolutely_ going to hurt.  
  
“Tell me how much you deserve this, baby boy,” Ephram snarled, grabbing Freddie’s hips, lying over him, and thrusting his cock past that tight, barely damp hole. He cried out too at the tightness, the burn, but then reached in front of Freddie to pin his fairy’s wrists tighter to the headboard and used his other arm as a bar around Freddie’s middle, holding him close to be plundered again and again.  
  
Ephram’s hands feeling almost as tight on his hips as the cuff around his ankle, as brutal and unyielding, Freddie let out a sob as he was breached, feeling like he was being fucked by a baseball bat - but he pushed back on it all the same. “I deserve it,” he gasped, tears leaking from the corners of his tightly shut eyes, “I’m so sorry, Daddy… I belong here… with you… and I need to be taught how to behave…”  
  
Ephram’s thrusts were unrelenting, and Freddie jerked when they struck his prostate, moaning raggedly in his husband’s arms; sparks of pleasure crackling through the pain and making it impossible for the fairy to steel himself against it, to inure himself until it passed.  
  
His body simply wasn’t his own anymore.  
  
Ephram had complete dominion.  
  
It made Ephram faintly nauseated, the oil slick of nasty satisfaction he got from hearing that sob forced out of Freddie even as his sweet baby made it hurt even more. Impaling himself just to please Daddy, as he quaked and pleaded and promised he’d behave from now on. Freddie’s tightly folded wings were quivering, and Ephram pulled them unfurled so they were spread out and fragile-looking, as lovely as Freddie himself was in all his submission.  
  
“There’s plenty more you need to be taught, babyslut,” Ephram rumbled. “This is only your first lesson and it’s an easy one. Because you understand this, don’t you, Freddie?” Ephram cupped Freddie’s chin, hauling his head up and back. “You spent enough time on your knees gettin’ deep-dicked to know how to take it rough.” He thrust forward cruelly, other hand grasping Freddie’s cock again. “You know what it’s all about, getting used like the whore you are, having no choice but to submit to it all. Submit or face worse.”  
  
As he spoke, green-silver magic trailed from Ephram’s fingers, wrapping in swirls around Freddie’s prick and compressing his balls before sliding up to his fairy’s piss slit and slithering in. “You’re the only fairy can get affected by witch magic, darlin’,” Ephram told him, expanding that strand of magic energy and then twisting it, screwing it down further in Freddie’s cockhole. “Not any witch’s magic, of course. Just me. Because your body knows who you belong to, even if you’re too goddamn childish to think shit through before making Daddy upset.”  
  
 _Sick_ , it was _sick_ how good it made Ephram feel to talk to Freddie this way, to feel overwhelmingly fierce love for his husband while relishing fully how Freddie’s body curled and curved beneath his barrage of thrusts, unable to find any respite but wanting it anyhow. Ephram knew that particular razor-edge well, pain edging up and up and yet wanting it because of the person destroying you. How they knew the way to handle your body, without hesitation or fear.  
  
“I love you,” Ephram said, pressing his forehead against Freddie’s back so his breath dampened the space between his lover’s wings. “That’s why I’m doing this to you, baby, that’s why I’m putting you through this and I know, I _know_ it hurts but I also know how much you wanna be a good lil slut for me, eh?” The sound of their skin slapping together on each punishing lunge sounded like pure music to Ephram with the melody of his darling’s sobs and moans intertwined. Leaning back and upright, Ephram groaned lustily as he watched his hard prick ravaging Freddie’s pinkened hole. “Fuck, I wish you could see this, honey,” he rasped. “You’re so tight and dry your cunt walls’re clinging to my dick every time I pull out. Like I’m turning you inside out. Like I’m dragging your guts out and then fucking em back into you.”  
  
With a sharp laugh, Ephram grabbed Freddie’s hips, the green magic dissipating from where it was tormenting Freddie’s cock, and drove himself into Freddie’s yielding body with renewed vigour. “Let’s see if we can’t find some way to lube you up, huh? It’ll be like you was a virgin again, baby boy.”  
  
If this was an easy lesson, Freddie thought as Ephram pulled him backwards, lifting him by the chin, he wasn’t sure he was still equipped to handle the hard ones.  
  
Each thrust of Ephram’s cock made him whine, the pain so bright and sharp that it seemed to glow behind his eyelids, and he did his best to breathe his way through it; each new plunge dragging tendrils of pleasure in its wake, and scorching his synapses even further.  
  
Ephram was right though - Freddie _did_ understand this. The value of submission, the rhythm and cadence of it; the ability to simply take what was given, to yield to the rough and the hard and the painful in order to spare yourself worse; to participate rather than allow yourself to be victimized - all of these the fairy had learned long ago at the hands of other men. Ephram was merely teaching a refresher - reminding Freddie of the basics before they could progress.  
  
Though the fairy would still never have described it as _easy_.  
  
But the pain of the fucking, the brutal depth and pace of it, the dry burn of such intimate friction, seemed gentle compared to the savagery of Ephram’s magic when it came. _Their_ magic. Joined and melded forever now into something new for his witch to call his own, as it penetrated Freddie in a way that he’d never allowed before; forcing itself deep into his cock, agony and bliss being ripped out of him from two separate poles. And he let out a series of ragged moans, though he tried to choke them back; tears rolling down his cheeks, face flushing with penitent shame, as his Daddy chastised him - though the words galvanized him too, urging him to clench around Ephram’s cock in spite of himself, his now-extended wings trembling from the pain.  
  
And the tremoring pleasure inside it.  
  
Still shocked at what Ephram could wring from him. At his own eagerness to bend and obey.  
  
His husband’s breath was hot and wet as Ephram pressed his forehead between Freddie’s wings - gusts teasing at the overly sensitive joints, the assault of warring sensations across his body making Freddie lightheaded - and he let out another sob when Ephram told him that he loved him and that it was this love that necessitated what was happening to him now, nodding again in understanding and acquiescence. In agreement.  
  
“I do…” the fairy managed, breathless and tremulous, “…and I can be… I _know_ I can be…”  
  
But when Ephram pulled back again, the angle of his thrusts changing slightly, Freddie lost the ability to speak, letting out a keening groan at the rough drag of Ephram’s cock as it fucked in and out of his body instead, his grip on the bed faltering. And when Ephram finally retracted his magic, the torturous fullness of his cock and the pressure surrounding it fading away to give Freddie some small respite, the fairy’s head dropped low again, an image of the only sort of lubrication he was likely to receive flashing through his mind.  
  
Because with a little fairy dust and some concentration - had concentration been even remotely possible, given the state he was in - Freddie knew that he could already have made things easier on himself (though not without permission; not without Daddy’s say-so)… But that wasn’t what Ephram was referring to. It couldn’t be.  
  
Not if his mind was on _virginity_.  
  
And with the way that his witch was fucking him now - the pace, and the force; each thrust a hammering drive of absolute ownership - it was only a matter of time before a little splash of red eased the way.  
  
Like Freddie was fourteen years old all over again.  
  
“Please…” he begged, though even he couldn’t have said what he was begging for, “God, Daddy, _please_ …”  
  
It just felt like the right thing to do.  
  
“That’s right, that’s my good obedient boy.” Ephram could hear the strain and pressure in Freddie’s voice as he offered up his body, without resistance, without shame. That was the important thing. Freddie could be made to feel penitent, subservient, eager to please, but Ephram didn’t want his lover _shamed_. They’d never broached the subject literally, but Ephram surmised that it had taken a lot of hard work (and deep denial) for Freddie to have been used so horribly as a child and come out of it holding his head high.  
  
Freddie could feel that strange intoxicating headspace of being called slut and whore and fucktoy, but he wasn’t ever to _believe_ it, not deep down inside. Not if Ephram could help it.  
  
His fairy was begging helplessly now, the ramble and run of his voice making it clear that he was being driven half out of his mind. “Five days I'm gonna keep you here,” Ephram grunted, gathering Freddie and tucking his arms and shoulders down until he was almost in a fetal position, only a creature of perfect musculature and wings and a hole beaten deep pink and….  
  
Ah, fuck. Ephram shuddered hard, an animal growl rising in his chest as he began to fuck Freddie with abandon, his passion for his fairy growing so wild Ephram thought it might split his body open and flood out like scorched sugar. “Christ,” he rasped, “you’ve gone virgin for me, Freddie, did you do it with dust? I’m making you bleed, Daddy’s your first and best fuck, there was nothin’ else before. This is where you learn for true what your body’s meant for. Five days you’re gonna have to learn it _all_.”  
  
Reaching down, Ephram dug his thumb past the already torn lip of Freddie’s hole, making a darkly satisfied noise when he saw the streak of pink, the echoing ribbon of red. “Taste it,” he ordered, pushing his thumb into Freddie’s slack, moaning mouth. “That, baby boy, is the taste of you getting stripped back down to innocent … for _me_ to be the one this time teaching you how to be Daddy’s own eager slut. Taste it, taste how you’re being butchered like a lamb on the altar.” He wrapped his arms tight around his balled-up lover, losing sense enough to speak coherently, and fucked into Freddie so hard that the headboard started banging against the wall.  
  
Ephram took Freddie’s hands from the headboard and folded him into something close to the fetal position - curling the fairy in on himself with his ass up, fucked open with his wings spread wide. And Freddie felt the deep convulsive shiver of his witch’s body only a split second before Ephram was thrusting into him even harder and faster than before; forcing another raw-sounding sob from the pit of Freddie’s stomach, and making him grit his teeth as he pushed back into each pounding drive of Ephram’s cock. Moaning louder as he trembled, overwrought and overstimulated; his own prick needy and neglected, still hard and leaking in spite of itself.  
  
The fairy was breathless, panting - babbling that he hadn’t done it on purpose, he hadn’t used his dust without permission; he’d been behaving, like a good boy - when it slowly dawned on him that things were sliding easier now…  
  
And that his punishment - his re-education - was to last the next five days and nights.  
  
But before he could really get his head around the visceral shock of either of those pieces of information, Freddie felt Ephram push something else in alongside his cock; pulling Freddie’s softened savaged hole open wider and making him drag in a breath, his eyes squeezing closed again.  
  
And they were still shut tight when Ephram’s thumb forced its way past his lips and into his mouth, painting Freddie’s tongue with the thick coppery tang of his own blood…  
  
…and the fairy moaned like a whore at the taste, wings fluttering, immediately sucking at it the same way he’d suck cock, thinking of how long it had been since he could lay claim to any sort of innocence. Wanting - through the haze of his sensory overload and the banging of the headboard, through the unrelenting pleasurepain of the fucking - to be that way again. For Ephram.  
  
Wanting to learn at his Daddy’s knee.  
  
“Such nice lil sounds you make for Daddy,” Ephram grunted, holding the headboard with one hand so he had the momentum to fuck Freddie that much harder and faster. His cock had visible streaks of blood on it now and Ephram ordinarily wouldn’t have gone to this length, but with the pretty, plaintive noises his Freddie was making, sounding young and uncertain and desperate to please, how could there be any other option? Ephram had always discovered new parts of himself – or old ones that had been plastered away because he couldn’t process their enormity at the time – when he was fucking or being fucked by Freddie, and he wanted the same for his husband.  
  
It wasn’t such a preposterous idea, that sex could be the place where they both let go of some of the pain that had shaped them. Freddie hustling in the red light districts, Ephram being traded around in prison, the diminished sense of self-worth that went along with that – they could reach it together, maybe finally set the old broken bones.  
  
“Now you know I don’t normally punish you like this, Freddie,” Ephram said, his voice jerking with the harshness of his motions. “But you gone and made it necessary. That might mayhap be naughtiness, since I know you love it when Daddy pays this much attention to getting you all sorted out–” Ephram shoved in and ground against Freddie’s ass, a change of pace from the intense drilling but no less deep or hard, “–but since I know you was upset for real, I won’t chalk it up to you fooling around. And you better thank your stars for that, babyboy.”  
  
He pulled out (reluctantly; whenever this happened when they were fucking, both of them protested the separation and now was no exception, a frustrated groan in Ephram’s throat) and took hold of Freddie’s waist, flipping him onto his back. “It’s gonna be your cherry blood on the sheet, baby,” Ephram said, rubbing Freddie’s sides to calm him a little, dipping his head to lick sweat from below one of Freddie’s pecs, the divot of his throat, the curve of his underarm. Raising up on his knees slightly, Ephram took Freddie’s raised arms and brought them down, pinning his wrists level on either side of his head.  
  
There wasn’t even any need to guide his cock in; Freddie was so wide and gaped that he couldn’t close his cunt even if he tried. Ephram kissed his fairy as he sank back deep into Freddie’s guts, feeling them part from the invasion and cling to him softly, silk and heat and _blood_. When he started fucking again, it was still firm and possessive, but the edge of anger had been replaced with pure, burning intensity. To make Freddie understand that Ephram would never, never want him gone.  
  
Freddie was exhausted; wrung out physically and emotionally, though he was still strung tight - but when Ephram pulled out, the fairy let out a whine of protest, immediately wanting him back again.  
  
His husband’s choked off groan brought the ghost of a smile to his lips though - even if the sudden manhandling over onto his back stole his breath for a moment - and Freddie stared up at Ephram, his pupils blown wide. He moaned softly at the gentle touch - his entire body, every square inch of flushed heated skin, highly sensitised now; each swipe of Ephram’s tongue making his back arch and his cock throb.  
  
And just as Freddie made to reach for his witch, to put his arms around him and cling to him, his wrists were caught fast and pinned to the bed, making it clear that Ephram had in no way ceded any of his control.  
  
So it was Freddie’s turn to groan as Ephram pushed inside him again.  
  
“I told you, honey,” Ephram mumbled, sweat dripping from his nose and chin onto Freddie’s face as he steadily fucked him. “When we was in that Roman mana pool and we’d met a whole two times before, I told you, don’t you remember?” He lowered his weight, the roll of his hips less pounding and more like he was trying to cement them together. “’ _Don’t ever go away_ ’, is what I said. I said _‘I want you around_ ’.” Ephram shut his eyes, murmuring against Freddie’s mouth, “I told you I want you in my life. So why would you do this to me?”  
  
Now that most of the surface anger had burned off, fired off in Freddie’s captive flesh, the raw hurt of what Ephram was feeling was impossible for him to hide.  
  
There was no resistance now - the fairy’s body had been well and truly invaded; bloodied and left wide open, at his own invitation, for Ephram to take at his leisure; and when he was kissed, his lover sinking into him slowly, Freddie kissed back with everything he had to give - long and deep and full of love.  
  
The frenzy of before, the concentrated brutality, had died away, and Ephram fucked him now with a single-mindedness that seemed to radiate from somewhere deep inside him; his blue eyes lit with it, as beads of warm sweat rolled down the witch’s face to land on Freddie’s, making the fairy part his lips wider, hoping to taste it. But when his husband began to speak - rolling his hips in a way that made Freddie have to swallow little mewls of pleasure, clutching Ephram tighter between his thighs, his ankle-chain announcing the motion - Freddie felt his heart clench.  
  
“I remember,” he breathed, his voice straining, eyes burning, “Of course I remember. I said that I wanted that too… I wanted to matter to you…”  
  
“Ephram, I didn’t mean-” a sob caught in the fairy’s throat, “I didn’t mean to leave… I didn’t think that I had… not really…”  
  
“But I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, love…” Penitent and racked with contrition, his eyes wet, half of Freddie’s words were lost against Ephram’s lips. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, sweetheart. I’m so sorry that I did…”  
  
He was crying now, and fighting it, kissing Ephram’s face and nuzzling up against him, the two of them rocking together.  
  
“…I won’t ever go away again…. I won’t. I don’t _want_ to. I _can’t_ be without you, love…”  
  
The sight of Freddie undone not only through nerves and flesh but also through raw emotion made Ephram groan helplessly, wanting it to end, wanting it to go on forever. Freddie wrapped up in his arms, so open and honest, promising him to never leave. Again and again.  
  
Ephram’s hips rolled in time with the repetition of Freddie’s words in his head, returning the desperate nuzzling as if they were two foxes in their den. “That’s all I want,” he gasped, belly tightening. “I want you to be with me. I wanna have you around to love all the time. I want you to never leave me again while you’re upset.” He paused, gathering his breath, and began fucking into Freddie again, slightly more raggedly, his balls aching with the need to cum. “While … _we’re_ upset,” Ephram amended, pushing his fingers in between the double set of Freddie’s blue wings.  
  
When Ephram told him what he wanted, tattered and breathless but still clear and certain - that he wanted them together always; wanted Freddie with him to have and to hold, especially when they were hurting - Freddie let out a small wet-sounding hiccoughing cry of relief and pressed his face harder against his husband’s cheek, breathing in the scent of him, and nodding as best he could; rocking in time with each of Ephram’s thrusts, his thighs trembling. “I love you,” he murmured thickly, his voice barely recognisable as his own, “…I won’t ever leave you again, sweetheart. Not ever… I’m so sorry…”  
  
One wrist free now, Ephram having snaked a hand under them to press at the joints of Freddie’s wings, the fairy moaned and took advantage of the freedom. Throwing his arm around Ephram, he dragged him closer, hanging on tightly, fingers tangled in his witch’s sweaty blond hair.  
  
He knew that Ephram was close. He could feel it in the set of his husband’s shoulders and the tense hum of his muscles, see it and hear it and smell it - and Freddie was right there with him, pushed to the precipice and teetering there. But he didn’t beg for permission to follow - though he wanted it desperately. A punishment was a punishment, after all; and Freddie, having seen the pain in Ephram’s eyes, knew that he’d more than earned his.  
  
And he knew that there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to wipe that pain away again.  
  
For a moment, Ephram thought he might be able to draw this out longer, until Freddie was outright sobbing with remorse and focused solely on rededicating himself to Ephram’s ownership of him. But he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to, at this point.  
  
Maybe all he wanted, really, was to fill his husband with his seed and hope that something took root there, and to be blessed by his husband’s willingness to accept the essence of the witch deep into his body.  
  
It was with a loud, agonized whine that Ephram came, his body freezing in a strained curve as spunk began to force its way deeper into Freddie’s belly. Then he picked up a staccato pace, cramming his cum back into Freddie as it threatened to drip out with every out-thrust. His cock would soften once it was spent, he knew, but until then Ephram was going to stay right here.  
  
When Ephram came, buried deep inside him, filling Freddie with the most primal urgent part of himself - the fairy’s own rigid cock aching between them, balls full and drawn up tight as plaintive need stung his eyes - Freddie just grit his teeth and held Ephram tighter, low grunting groans escaping him as his witch drove all that hot wet spend deeper.  
  
Doing his best to clench his sore gaping hole around his husband’s slowly softening prick; greedy for what he had, and what he’d been given, and not wanting to let anything go.  
  
It took a few moments after he’d cum for Ephram’s pounding head and heart to allow him to realize that Freddie was holding him close, fingers in his hair the way Ephram liked it. And that not only had Freddie not climaxed himself, but despite the bloody play at taking his virginity, his fairy was doing his damnedest to milk everything Ephram could give him. Anguish clear on his handsome face and the swollen rose of his lips, blue eyes brilliant with agony and sparkling tears, pain radiating off of him in waves.  
  
“It’s okay, baby,” Ephram told him, voice raspy and rubbly as he nosed against Freddie’s face for a moment. “I think I took enough outta you for starters. You get to rest a lil bit now.”  
  
Of course, under this new regime that meant something different than it had been before. Instead of letting Freddie lie down and snuggling with him, Ephram hoisted his lover’s exhausted, trembling body and rolled Freddie further back on his wings and shoulders. He spread Freddie’s legs and groaned, a spur of depraved lust lancing through his belly at the sight of the damage he’d done; his fairy’s hole torn open and pounded to gaping, all of the delicate membranes showing every inch of the brutality that Ephram had inflicted.  
  
Ephram didn’t hesitate. He lowered his head and with gentle, efficient motions, licked that pretty cunt he’d just used so roughly. “Daddy made you look like the slut you are, huh, sweetheart?” he commented, turning his head to deeply scent at Freddie’s stained, bruised thigh. “Like you been passed around and had at least twelve dicks up your greedy pussy. Like you ain’t gonna go back to normal for a few days at least.” Biting a bruise into Freddie’s thigh, Ephram spat into that quivering hole, sticking a finger in to slick it around. He shivered at how thin the tissues felt and how feverish hot they were, and finally let Freddie down onto the mattress.  
  
Gathering his husband close, Ephram continued ignoring Freddie’s aching erection and instead bound his wrists in the small of his back before settling down again. “I think,” he said, and just like that the angry force that had driven him to savage Freddie was gone, replaced by a man who was faintly unsure about something important and his own potential wrong-footedness, “maybe I didn’t have no right to say as I did, to tell you two to break up. If you’re…” Ephram paused to swallow, hard. “If you feel like you gotta run away from me and if Ruby’s blaming herself for even being alive.”  
  
Giving voice to that fear was hard and it fucking _hurt_ , but there was a reason Ephram had secured Freddie’s hands. With how raw and oversensitized he felt, the idea of anybody touching him – even Freddie, who he normally welcomed any physical contact from – especially in compassion, would make him lose it completely. Between Anaxis hijacking his … what did Cardero call it? … _fleshbag_ from time to time and the four years he’d spent with his body belonging to anybody but him, not to mention the refresher course from Bellamy and Faye who were supposed to love him and mutilated him instead, it had taken a damn long time before Ephram could handle being touched kindly. It could be too overwhelming for him, too much to endure. And right at this moment he wanted to make sure that even the possibility of coming apart didn't exist. 

There was simply too much they needed to get said.  
  
A whimpering breath Freddie hadn’t truly been aware he’d been holding clawed its way past his lips when Ephram told him it was alright, gently pushing his nose against the fairy’s cheek. Telling him that he could rest now. That, for the moment, Ephram was satisfied.  
  
And when his legs were lifted, and he was pushed back onto his wings and shoulders, legs spread so as to be intimately inspected for damage - or maybe just for Ephram to take pride in his handiwork - Freddie could only bite his lip and lay there, drawing slow shuddering breaths as his still painfully hard cock dripped onto his belly, the scent of Ephram’s spunk and his own blood thick in the air.  
  
But he let out a keening sound as Ephram’s tongue dragged over his hole; the sensation making him tremble - making everything better and worse all at once - and he murmured a strained and breathy, “Yes sir,” as his husband spoke, Ephram’s deep voice describing the current state of his body. The proprietary stamp left on it.  
  
 _Property of Ephram Pettaline. Trespassers will be shot on sight._  
  
The bite to his thigh made the fairy wince just a little, but the finger that slid so easily back inside him, adding Ephram’s warm spit to the rest of the mess, made him clench his jaw and suck in sharply through his teeth; the tear still incredibly tender.  
  
He still wished for it back again once it had gone though - withdrawn in order to let him down - wanting to cum so badly, and knowing that Ephram could finger him to climax with barely any effort at all.  
  
But Freddie’s hands were tied at the wrists behind his back instead, his needy cock still ignored despite the way his hips jutted up from the mattress to accommodate his bindings, and the fairy felt raw all over. Hypersensitive, like an exposed nerve, and wrung out in a way he’d never experienced before. But when Ephram began to speak again, the fairy was struck by the change. He no longer sounded strong and certain, and Freddie clenched his jaw, forcing himself to rise above his own exhaustion for the time being; clearing his head, as best he could, while he focused on his witch’s words.  
  
“No, sweetheart,” he croaked, shaking his head slightly, and trying to drive the teary glaze from his eyes, blood and cum dripping out onto the sheets, “-you had every right. Ruby and I didn’t give you any choice. We forced you to make the decision for us - _I_ forced you to make the decision for us - and it wasn’t fair. I should never have put you in that position, love, and I’m sorry.”  
  
“I should have been the one to end things. I just…” Freddie trailed off for a moment as he summoned the wherewithal to keep going, to push through his knee-jerk disinclination to examine his more painful truths and feelings and give them voice. Averting his eyes slightly, he spoke even more softly now. “When someone says that they love me… it’s very hard for me to turn away from that. To let it go. Even after it’s begun to hurt, and I know it isn’t what it should be anymore.”  
  
“But that’s no excuse.”  
  
Freddie finally met Ephram’s eyes again. “I was never running away from _you_ though, sweetheart. I was hiding from the situation. From Ruby’s endless attempts to put things right without really understanding the problem, from my own jealousy at the way that I knew she and her Pain would need to be the focal point of your attention - and from your disappointment, too. From the way it hurts me that somehow this mess is apparently half my fault when I honestly don’t know what else I could have done…”  
  
“But not from you, love. I’ve only ever wanted to run _toward_ you.”  
  
Freddie sighed. “So I can’t speak to how Ruby’s feeling,” he said, trying to keep his frustration with her out of his voice, “-but I do know that you’re not responsible for it. Ruby and I couldn’t go on together anymore - and you did what needed to be done because I was too weak to manage it.”  
  
“Will you tell me how you’re feeling though, darling?” Freddie asked gently, though his back had begun to twinge a bit; a new voice added to his current chorus of bodily pain. “We’ve put you in an impossible position, and how you feel should never have gotten so lost in the mix.”  
  
“It was okay that I had to make the decision.” Ephram thought about that again and pushed aside his learned behaviour to always say it was okay, swallowing and trying once more. “I mean … I was fine with giving you'ns the shove. This is my relationship too, and I know the both of you experienced way too little when it comes to love to know how to let go with any grace. What hurt was that neither of you tried to make it better even _after_. Instead it felt like you was–”  
  
Ephram turned onto his side to face Freddie, reaching over to rub the tension in the fairy’s bound arms. “Even if you didn’t mean it, it felt like you was punishing me. Like you both were, for making that decision and for not giving you a follow-up plan and for not choosing between you.” He sighed, hand moving to massage Freddie’s shoulder. “You’n Ruby are sorter alike in certain ways, y’know. She don’t know what else she could of done neither, and yet you both say you’re sorry. It’s like you only wanna cop to being accountable for the things that you decide are relevant and nothin’ else.”  
  
He leaned forward and kissed the corner of Freddie’s mouth, exhausted but too wired to sleep. “I love you, honey, I love you like crazy,” Ephram said. “But it ain’t true that you'd run through all your options and then it was all Ruby's doing. You just said it your own self, you could of been more upfront with her at any point instead of it getting so fucked up. That, Freddie, that’s on you.”  
  
Turning Freddie towards him enough to free his fairy’s hands, Ephram spread them both out and tugged the sheet haphazardly over their bodies. “I know you get hurt when I tell you this sorter stuff,” he said quietly, worry lacing through the words. “I don’t wanna hurt you. But I can’t be dishonest with you neither, and honey – as much as Ruby got her fixation on being in the most pain, you got yourself something of a persecution complex.”  
  
Ephram’s fingers moved along Freddie’s side as if he was gentling a horse as he muttered, “…plenty things wrong with me, I know, so don’t think I judged myself without sin in all this. I just want you to remember…” He shut his eyes, pressing his forehead against Freddie’s as he stroked the upper ridge of one wing, “…I don’t know a fuckin’ thing bout healthy relationships any more’n you and Ruby do. I never had our kind of love.”  
  
Freddie stiffened despite Ephram’s touch, and took a deep breath. “That’s not fair,” he said quietly, his voice still not quite his own. “It’s not fair to tell me I didn’t try to make it better after - to expect me to be able to, or to want to - and it’s not fair to accuse me of not wanting to be accountable for my part in what happened.”  
  
“This has been going on with Ruby and I for ages, Ephram. Nearly since the start. And yeah, I could have - and _should_ have - spoken up earlier. I’ve said that. I’ve never denied it. Because that is on me. But it’s a learning curve, love, and I’ve never been a very good student. Never mind the fact that I’ve been taught some rather conflicting lessons, even by you and Ruby.”  
  
“ _Open up, Freddie. Your feelings matter, Freddie_. Only not so long ago, my feelings wouldn’t have been enough to keep you from walking away from me entirely. Handing me off to Elizabeth because you knew best. And Ruby-” Freddie’s jaw clenched slightly before he went on. “I _tried_ with Ruby, love. For a very long time. And I made mistakes, yeah. I kept quiet too long. I pretended it didn’t matter that she treated me as an afterthought, a pet… as the ghost of David bloody Johnson. As I was talked over, and corrected, and dismissed. But I learned. And I tried. I tried to do better. To change. To flaming _grow_. Maybe too late sometimes - _most_ times, apparently - but I did. I explained over and over again how I felt - about Lizzie, about Ruby’s perception of me, about Ruby's obsession with having a baby… I explained, and I tried to understand. I tried to make allowances for all the ways that we’re all so colossally fucked - but I don’t think it was too much to ask to expect that eventually, after nearly two years together, that some of what I’d said might finally start to get through.”  
  
“So you’re right, actually, darling. About one thing, at least. By the time you ended things, I suppose I didn’t try to make them better anymore. I didn’t offer to forgive and forget, I didn’t tell Ruby that everything would be alright - but I never expected you to ‘choose me’, Ephram, and I certainly wasn’t punishing you for it. I’m sorry it seemed like I was. I just needed time away. I needed to work out how to move forward. So I went to Iann. Because I needed, at least for a little while, to be with someone entirely on my side. And I know you know how that feels, love.”  
  
Freddie hated these conversations so much. They never stopped being hard, and painful, and terrifying - but he kept on, because this was Ephram, and because there was nothing else for it.  
  
“So what were my options as you see them, Ephram?” the fairy asked tiredly, folding his freed arms and rubbing them unconsciously. “And I’m not asking because I expect you to tell me how to proceed; how to think and feel and live my life - I’m asking because if you’re going to say that my perception of things isn’t true, then I expect you to defend your position, the same way I’m willing to defend mine.”  
  
He sniffled a little without meaning to. “But you can stuff that persecution complex rubbish; because Ruby is the only person I feel persecuted by, and you’re not in any fair position - as Husband #1, Sheriff Pettaline - to have any clear sort of view of that.”  
  
“For all my flaws, Ephram, all my small and ugly qualities - of which there are many; I can list them for you, if you like - that isn’t one of them.”  
  
Freddie wanted to roll over and turn his back on his husband - though he knew it would look precisely like the persecution complex he’d just denied, which aggravated him - but the chain on his ankle wouldn’t allow it, so instead he stayed where he was. And when Ephram touched their foreheads together, his eyes closed and his hands gentle, the fairy sighed.  
  
“I never expected you to know, love,” he said quietly. “I thought we’d all learn together.”  
  
“Christ Almighty, Freddie – none of it’s fair! But I figured you would–”  
  
Ephram stopped suddenly, shifting back on the bed to stare at his husband. “Nearly since the start?” he repeated, shock resonating in his voice. “You and Ruby been at odds nearly since the start?” Sitting up, Ephram reached for his pack of cigarettes; he rarely smoked in the house, but at the moment he didn’t give a damn about that. “Lemme tell you something, Freddie Watts – either you think I don’t know you, or you’re for once painting the past darker instead of lighter. Because that ain’t true. It might feel like it now, but you and Ruby got on fine for a good while. Before shit started misfiring.”  
  
He growled when Freddie brought up Elizabeth, stabbing the fingers cinching the cigarette towards the fairy. “I apologized for that, I did my _best_ to fuckin’ make up for that! You think I didn’t feel like you didn’t give a shit about my feelings, staying with a woman who loathed me? Who said I acted like a serial killer and the town whore? I mean, once you decided you couldn’t be with Elizabeth no more – and remember, _I_ was the one did your dirty work on breaking up with her, too – you was so hurt that Ruby stayed friends with her. _That_ was a mixed message, if you wanna talk bout that.” Ephram took a hard drag on the cigarette and pinched a couple grains of loose tobacco from his lip. “It was fine for you to stay with Elizabeth when she made me feel like some deranged brainless slut, to _love_ her even, but not fine for Ruby to stay friends with her after.”  
  
Sighing, Ephram leaned his head back, reaching down to clasp Freddie’s hand in his own. “Look, I ... all that’s in the past, I don’t intend to chew it over. But it tore me up at the time. And maybe I should of said so, but I didn’t feel I had any right to deprive you of whatever love you found. Not for my sake.” He squeezed Freddie’s hand, exhaling smoke as he murmured, “Don’t think that I ever wanted to give you away, Freddie. I was scared Elizabeth would make an ultimatum and I didn’t want you to have to choose.” Ephram blinked up at the ceiling, his gaze tracking the crown moulding to have something to focus on. “You hadn’t taught me yet that I could actually be somebody’s priority. And I sure as hell didn’t feel like one with Elizabeth – your _lover_ – hating me like she did.”  
  
Pinching the glowing tip of the cigarette to snuff it, Ephram slid back down on the bed and curled up against Freddie, rubbing his long nose along the fairy’s collarbone. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m worn out and I feel like I failed you both and it makes me mean as a rabid possum. I don’t know what you could do after, I just felt like I was the onliest one working on it and you two wasn’t really, and that’s bullshit.” Ephram gave a derisive little snort, moving his head along Freddie’s shoulder till he had one eye’s worth of unobstructed view of his husband’s face. “Betcha wish now you married somebody older and wiser, who could of straightened this all out sooner.” Despite his attempt to sound wry and worldly, really Ephram just sounded shaken, wistful. His long fingers curled and uncurled tentacle-like around Freddie’s limbs, searching unconsciously for something. Some answer he didn’t know the question to.  
  
“I meant that my being second to you was nearly always the way it was, Ephram,” Freddie spat back, “-not this kind of rubbish! It was a long slow decline to get here. Which was all my fault. Fine; I’ll own that. I let it get this far by being a naive fucking doormat. I know.”  
  
Freddie tried to sit up, chain clanking and pulling awkwardly at his leg, and then gave up again. “But you’re a fucking hypocrite as much as I am for throwing the fact that I didn’t leave Elizabeth back in my face now,” he retorted. “I _wanted_ to do something! The instant I found out about it! I told you I did - and every time, you begged me not to. Not to mention it. Not to bring it up. Not to breathe a fucking word of how you felt to her. So I didn’t. I fought with her every time she so much as said a word about you - but I never _forced_ things. And I _forgave_ you for trying so bloody hard to get rid of me, too. For offering me up twice, yeah?”  
  
Freddie covered his face with his hands, his heart pounding and everything hurting as he tried to marshall his thoughts; taking a deep breath, his face still hidden as he muttered, “But I should have left her. I _know_ I should have. I should have done it the instant she told me she was frightened of you. But I didn’t know how. I’d never had anyone love me and I was petrified to hand it back again, even when it was toxic and awful. Which isn’t an excuse, by the way - it’s a condemnation. It’s fucking disgust. I’m a grown man, not a little boy, and I should have behaved like one.”  
  
The fairy moved his hands and looked at Ephram. “But fuck you for sitting here, telling me all about how I refuse to own my part of what happened with Ruby, telling me that my not speaking up was so awful, and then absolving yourself of the same.”  
  
Freddie sighed. “I’m sorry that I let you down, Ephram,” he murmured, fatigued and paper-thin, looking at the way their hands were clasped. “I was out of my depth, and I sorted my priorities too late to spare you that hurt - but I think I’ve made it very clear since what and who my priority is.”  
  
“There’s nothing in the world more important to me than you, love. I’d do anything for you. And for you to sit here, criticising me for not doing right by you then - when, all intentions aside, you’d planned to let me go like a toy you were finished with…” Freddie trailed off, missing Ollie, feeling shaken and alone. “It hurts,” he said simply and quietly. “It hurts to know that you feel that way - that you’ve felt that way all along. It hurts to know that you resented what you did for me when things with Lizzie were ending; that you feel you were ‘doing my dirty work’. The same way it hurts every time you tell me that your relationships with Faye and Bellamy are none of my concern, and to stop being a drama queen about it.”  
  
Freddie looked over at Ephram again sadly. “I mean, tell me, love,” he asked, “-is _that_ when I should feel like your priority?”  
  
The fairy took another breath, and let it out slowly. “But you’re right,” he said, “The past is the past, and there’s no sense raking it up again now, is there? The past belongs in the past. Looking back never did anyone any good.”  
  
Ephram finished his cigarette, and lay down, cuddling close, and Freddie felt his eyes start to prickle - but he didn’t cry. Instead he just swallowed hard and said, “You didn’t fail us, sweetheart,” silently accepting that in this, he and Ephram would never see eye to eye. Ephram would always believe that Freddie hadn’t done enough to repair the damage done, and Freddie would always feel a little bit unsupported - and that was simply the way it would be. Relationships had survived worse, after all.  
  
They’d hurt each other - badly - but it would mend. They would mend it together.  
  
“I never wish for anyone but you, love,” Freddie said truthfully, meeting Ephram’s eye when it sought his, his voice low and sure. “And I don’t expect you to have all the answers, or to keep things from ever becoming hard or complicated… I never have, Ephram.”  
  
“I just want to be with you. And if I can do that, I can find a way to navigate the rest.”  
  
“So why’d you listen to me?” Ephram demanded, his breathing speeding up slightly. “If you knew what Elizabeth was doing was wrong, why was it on me to decide whether or not you stayed with her? Why didn’t you force it?” He scrubbed his hand through his hair, pulling at it. “I already said I didn’t wanna make you feel like you should leave Elizabeth because of me. You’re right, everything you’re saying is right, because it’s exactly what I _just said_. Basically we’re agreeing that having anybody love you meant _so much_ to you that you was petrified to lose it, and I _wanted_ you to have that so I tried my best to make it easy on you as possible to have all three of us.”  
  
He detached a bit from Freddie, moving back and onto his belly with his fists tucked under his chin and half his face shoved into his pillow. “I know it was wrong-headed,” Ephram said, muffled. “And you ain’t the first person called me a hypocrite. But I was scared, Freddie, of losing you. The idea of getting to have you and then have you clawed out’ve my life on account of Elizabeth hating me, it scared me mindless.” He snuffled, continuing, “I don’t think you ever really forgiven me. You keep reminding me that I wanted to give you away or _discard_ you or whatever else – twice? I don’t even _know_ when this other time was – and honestly, Freddie, that’s what I mean about your persecution complex.”  
  
Ephram unclenched his hands and curled his fingers into the edge of the pillow, bunching it into lumps. “We’ve had all this time loving each other since then, and you don’t want me saying anything about how I felt – or sorry, _criticizing_ you – while you take every opportunity to tell me I threw you away like a toy I was finished with as if that’s _now_. As if it’s still an open wound and likely to happen again. I don’t understand why you would think that, Freddie, after all we been through and what we have together.” Ephram gulped, obviously choked up and trying to work through it. “That you think right now, _today_ , that you ain’t first in my world.”  
  
Getting to his knees, Ephram clasped his hand around Freddie’s ankle, dissolving the shackle there before he dropped back down into his previous position. “I shouldn’t of said I did your dirty work,” he said thickly. “I don’t resent you, I _don’t_.” He breathed for a while, shuddering like a greyhound, then said, “Cardero cut you open to get a jewel from inside you, without asking you first. After all of the violations you suffered from Martin Adjaye, he went ahead and did _that_ , and you forgave him.” Ephram rubbed his face against his pillow, saying, “You forgave him because you love him, enough to trust him to cut you open again and put a seed inside you. The two’ve you and your sugarplum baby and all is forgiven, ain’t that it?” He moved his arms, clenching them around the pillow and hauling it into a ball. “You want me to hate him the way you hate Faye and Bellamy? Because I can. Or I can realize that you needed backing when you was hurt and recovering, but now you’re ready to be close with him again. Sleep in his bed and kiss on him and have a business with him.” Ephram’s voice was hoarse and catching on his consonants, strained. “Because he’s the _only one_ entirely on your side.”  
  
Freddie gaped at Ephram, stunned by the question. “I listened to you because it was _you_ ,” he said, frustrated and hurt and incredulous. “Because of all the love I’ve ever been afraid of losing, yours is the _only one_ I know I can’t do without, Ephram. Your approval, your affection… YOU have always been the most important person in my life. Since the day I met you. I want, now and fucking forever, to be the _one person_ capable of giving you what you want, and what you need - only I didn’t trust myself enough then to believe that I knew what that was. So I listened to you, and did as you asked - and I wish to god I hadn’t. I wish I’d been stronger, and smarter, and able to see the truth of what was already there in front of me.”  
  
As Ephram went on though, insisting that they were saying the same thing, Freddie shook his head violently. “No! We’re not. We’re not saying the same bloody thing at all, Ephram. How can you not see that? How can you say you were trying to keep me from losing the love that I had when you were going to deprive me of _yours_?”  
  
“How could you think that would be easy on me?!”  
  
But when Ephram pulled away from him, the tears that had welled up in his eyes spilled silently and Freddie rubbed them away with the heels of his hands, biting his lip and breathing deeply at the second mention of his persecution complex, afraid of what his voice would sound like when he tried to respond. Or if he could even respond at all without crying like a child. “I _have_ forgiven you, love,” he said wetly, his voice raspy and raw. “I know that you’d never do it again. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And it doesn’t mean I forget what it felt like to know that you could have done it. I’ve never felt worse in my life; never felt more worthless. And I didn’t invent it out of the clear blue sky, Ephram. I never saw it coming.”  
  
“So maybe I do worry about being left, about losing you - but I’m sorry, sweetheart, from where I sit, it’s very much harder to see the line between ‘complex’ and the lurking threat of history repeating itself.”  
  
After a moment, Freddie turned over to face his witch, reaching out for him, needing to touch him, even just a little, in spite of the hurt they both felt. “I’m sorry I brought it up tonight,” he said softly, swallowing hard as he laid a hand on Ephram’s shoulder, “-but you know that I don’t take ‘every opportunity’. And you know that I _want_ to know how you feel - I _always_ want to know that. I’m just hurt, Ephram… and I was angry. It felt as though you’d decided there were two separate sets of rules for you and I - and that I needed to be taken to task for breaking mine when we’d done the _same_ bloody thing.”  
  
The fairy’s voice broke and his eyes welled again. “But I’m sorry. And I know that I’m first, love - I _try_ to know it - but I just… you’re the only one who’s ever put me there. And sometimes it’s hard for me to trust that I can have it. Not because I doubt you - but because to me, the whole idea still seems a bit like believing in Father Christmas. Especially on a night like tonight, when I feel like I’m made of tissue paper.”  
  
“I just want so badly to be first, Ephram - to be your priority - that sometimes knowing your loyalty isn’t mine alone hurts when it hasn’t any right to.”  
  
“I’m not proud of it, love - but it’s not as though you haven’t seen what a child I can be at my worst.”  
  
When Ephram sat up though, dissolving the chain, Freddie felt his stomach twist, and he sat up too, tense and anxious, staring down at Ephram and just listening as he spoke for as long as he could stand it, before moving closer and hauling his husband into his lap and into his arms, holding him tightly. “Please love, put it back on,” he murmured. “I’m yours, Ephram. I’ve always been yours, and I always will be. In a hundred years, I’ll still be yours. I just couldn’t stand to hear you tell me all about Ruby’s side of things that night. To feel as badly as I did and to have to know and see how you were hers, too. I just wanted to be told that my side was the only side that mattered…”  
  
Freddie’s voice shook and the hands holding Ephram trembled. “I did forgive Iann, like you forgave Faye and Bellamy, and you can hate him if you want to, or you can turn the other cheek and show me up as the bigger man, sweetheart - but I need to know that you understand you’re the only home I have in the world.”  
  
The fairy buried his face in his husband’s hair. “Ephram, _please_ … put the shackle back on.”  
  
“Every time we argue.” Ephram shook his head. “Every time, Freddie, you remind me of how I ‘wanted to give you away’. It don’t matter to you that it was ripping my own heart out to do it, to try and make it easier on you; it don’t matter that I had a hard time too, believing that you’d choose to keep me when Elizabeth wanted me gone and you loved her.” Ephram huffed a few breaths, continuing in a small, wavery voice, “You can’t say you forgave me and then say in the same breath that you’re scared of history repeating itself.” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, still doing it as he asked, “What’s the second time I did that to you? I asked and you didn’t answer me. I don’t know what it is you’re talking about and I reckon I should or that one’ll be held against me in perpetuity as well.”  
  
When Freddie confessed that he wanted to be a priority, Ephram protested, saying, “You _are_ that to me, I told you so! I told you I love you more’n anybody. Hell, I didn’t make no secret of it, I told Ruby too and we both agreed that you needed it, to know that you were loved the most since you didn’t hear it enough in your life. Not like her ‘n me did.”  
  
Freddie’s reaction to Ephram removing the shackle was startling to say the least, but the witch shoved hard into his fairy’s embrace when Freddie pulled him close. Wanting to stay there for days, weeks, whatever it took. “I ain’t gonna hate Cardero, and I ain’t gonna show you up neither,” he said gruffly. His hand wrapped around Freddie’s ankle, most of the way, and Ephram re-linked the chain with the restraint. “I wasn’t never gonna leave it off for long,” he told Freddie, a silvery dash of magic sealing the closure. “You looked uncomfortable, was all. I didn’t want you to be in pain.”  
  
An incongruous statement, maybe, given what the arrangement with this locked room and Freddie being tied up with no clothes in it, but Ephram drew a pretty hard distinction between good sex pain and desperate emotional agony. He didn’t like to cross the streams. He’d lived that way once and it had nearly driven him off the precipice of sanity, which, to be honest, was already shaky ground for him.  
  
Resting against Freddie again, Ephram made a mournful sound as a thought he’d had earlier returned and settled in better this time. “The neither of you,” he said, and paused for an interminably long time before picking up again, “the neither of you really knows how to do polyamory, huh? I thought you did.” Ephram breathed in and out slowly as he repeated himself. “I thought you did.”  
  
“But forgiveness and fear aren’t mutually exclusive, love,” Freddie said softly, all the emphatic fight of only a few moments before slipping away from him as he did his best to explain himself. “The fear isn’t a judgment, or a conscious choice - it’s just… there. It started growing a long time ago, and tugging it out by the roots is hard, sweetheart. It’s so much harder than I ever thought it would be…”  
  
“And that _is_ the second time,” he went on, answering his husband’s question. “The first was after Anaxis burned the brand into my hand - when my control over my emotions was so tenuous, and Lizzie had chucked me the first time. We were texting, you and I, and you asked me if Elizabeth and I had split because of you and Ruby. You told me to focus on her if I needed to; that you didn’t want to rob me of any sort of happiness - and it scared me. It terrified me, actually - the demon’s influence just amplifying it all. And I told you no, that I didn’t need to do anything of the kind, and I asked you if you were trying to end things with me - and when you finally replied an hour later, you told me that you thought I should focus on Elizabeth. That if we were to end up as nothing more than mates you could do that.”  
  
Freddie scrubbed at his eyes again, at the tear-tracks on his cheeks. “And then you changed your mind again. Suddenly. I’d texted you back frantically telling you no, that that wasn’t what I wanted, and after what felt like ages - twenty minutes or more - you said, ‘Alright.’ Just alright. Like it had been nothing. And maybe it was nothing - maybe it was all in my head; that persecution complex you see so often - but it frightened me to death that I could lose you so easily.”  
  
The fairy drew in a shaky breath. “And then you promised me that nothing would change unless I wanted it to. And I believed you. I trusted that. So later, when you told me what you’d said to Elizabeth on the road, knowing it had come after…” Freddie just shook his head, shrugging as fresh tears fell, undoing his efforts to clean his face, “It just felt like the bottom dropped out.”  
  
And he sighed, no longer attempting to pretend he had any means of drying his eyes, when Ephram argued that Freddie was his priority. “I know you did,” the fairy said softly. “I do know that, love. I’m just trying to explain the way that my head works sometimes… Trying to make sense of how and why I’ve done these things that have hurt you so badly, when that’s the last thing I ever want to do…”  
  
It felt good to hold Ephram again, to wrap him in his arms and keep him there, and when he felt the shackle close around his ankle a second time, he let out a shuddering breath of relief.  
  
In the moment, the sudden freedom had seemed symbolic - more of that persecution complex, maybe; coupled with the overall fragility of having been so completely broken down physically and emotionally only moments before entering into such tumultuous conversation - and it was only now that Ephram had explained, that Freddie understood his overreaction. “I can manage,” he murmured as Ephram settled back against his chest again, “I want it there.”  
  
But when Ephram arrived at the conclusion that neither Freddie nor Ruby truly understood what it meant to be in a polyamorous relationship, the fairy said quietly, “Ephram, I’ve never had a relationship before. What I know, is sex. I’m learning as I go. Everything is new to me…”  
  
“But you told me tonight that I need remember you don’t know anything about healthy relationships either- so maybe none of us knew quite how to work it out, yeah? Even though we wanted to.”  
  
Freddie was still for a moment, then drew in another slightly shaky breath, holding his witch closer. “For my part,” he said, his voice still thick, but no longer breaking, “-I think I could have done it. In another life, with other people, I think I could manage it… but I never expected to fall in love with you the way I am, sweetheart. I never expected I could love _anyone_ the way I love you…”  
  
“I don’t know,” the fairy sighed finally, “All I can do now is move forward. I can’t stay mired in fault and blame and my own hurt feelings anymore.”  
  
“Okay.” Ephram said it in a papery voice, but then much stronger, “Okay. I get it now. I shouldn’t of done that, Freddie, made you feel like I was pushing you towards her. But I need you to tell me you understand the position I was in, too. I mean, honey, you had _three_ lovers and Elizabeth was already pitching fits and punishing you for me being part of it, and I…” His sentence trailed away, and then Ephram said, “y’know what, never mind. Just, I’m sorry I did it and that I made you feel like I could give you up that easy. It wasn’t fair of me to do.”  
  
“No,” Freddie murmured, shaking his head, his brow furrowing over his red puffy eyes, “-don’t do that, love. Don’t say never mind. I _want_ to mind it. And I _should_ \- because it matters.”  
  
The fairy turned his face to press a kiss to Ephram’s head, his husband’s hair soft and damp against his lips. “If I want you to try to understand how I felt, then I need to do the same.”  
  
His voice was low as he went on, “And I think I _do_ understand a little bit better now, at least. You were hurt, rightfully, and you were frightened of losing me… and ultimately, you were trying to take care of me. Because you thought that it would hurt me less to lose you than to lose Elizabeth.”  
  
Freddie took a breath, tightening his grip. “I’m so sorry I didn’t make you understand that _nothing_ could ever hurt me more than being without you, Ephram.”   
  
The witch kept trailing his fingers up and down Freddie’s leg, listening to his heartbeat and listening to him talk, reminding Ephram that none of them had really known much about healthy relationships or how to navigate polyamory. “I was best at it, though!” he exclaimed indignantly. “I sure as sugar figured it out faster’n you two, now, Freddie, you gotta give me that one.”  
  
Ephram’s emphatic umbrage in defense of his own superior ability to adapt to being part of polyamorous relationship made Freddie let out a small fond huff of air, the ghost of a wistful smile on his lips. “You were absolutely the best at it, darling,” he conceded, “I’m not going to argue with that.”  
  
“I did my best… but I’m not going to reverse my position on good intentions now, just to paint myself prettier than I am. Actions weigh more, and in the long run, obviously I just couldn’t manage it. And it wasn’t fair to any of you that I kept insisting I could.”  
  
Ephram scowled like a boy, mouth twisted to the side, but his sulky expression eased as Freddie went on. “I don’t want you to stay mired neither,” Ephram said, moving to sling his legs around Freddie’s hips, his arms around his fairy’s neck. “Like Artax in the mud swamp thing when the Nothing made him all depressed, that used to upset me so much as a kid.” For some reason Ephram assumed that Freddie had made time in his tumultuous childhood to watch The NeverEnding Story and understand these references, and didn’t pause to explain, caught up in the moment.  
  
When Ephram swung round to straddle him, the clothes his witch had never shed - Ephram’s trousers were undone, open salaciously, and hanging low on his hips; but otherwise he was still fully dressed - rubbing against Freddie’s bare skin, the fairy allowed himself a genuine smile; small, and a bit fragile, but sincere and evident, as his husband’s arms came up around his neck. “Bahraman took me to see that when it came out,” he said, remembering. “That’s a very apt comparison, love.”  
  
At the time, as a fairy boy with a familiar, the loss of Artax to the Swamp of Sadness had been terrifying to Freddie, whose view had been very literal; but years later, just after Martin, when he’d seen The NeverEnding Story again on television in a hotel in Munich, he’d had to wonder if he’d taken something different from it too, without realising. If it had made more of an impression than he’d thought.  
  
‘ _Everyone knew that whoever let the sadness overtake him would sink into the swamp…_ ’  
  
Freddie had thought he was keeping himself from sinking by burying everything that hurt too much to face - but it seemed more likely now that he’d only guaranteed his trek through the swamp went on forever.  
  
“Christ, I haven’t thought of that film in eons…”  
  
“You don’t know, Freddie, what it does to me when you tell me that sorter thing,” Ephram said, pressing a kiss to Freddie’s cheekbone. “That I could do that, could make you feel a kind of love that seemed like you could never have. That I could be that important to someone like you, honey.”  
  
The fairy closed his eyes for a moment, leaning into the gentle touch of Ephram’s lips to his cheek, his arms around his lover’s waist. “No, I don’t know,” he agreed softly, “-but I imagine it must be close to the same way I feel when you tell me those sorts of things.”  
  
Freddie’s blue eyes met Ephram’s. “You say ‘ _someone like me_ ’ like I’m so special, sweetheart - and really I’m just sat here in awe of someone like _you_.”  
  
Ephram’s heavy heart lifted and lightened as Freddie talked, touching on every point that Ephram’d tried to articulate about that confusing, whirlwind crux of their relationship. It hurt a little to recall it, how uncertain about his own worth he’d been and how sure he’d been that his presence was the thing keeping Freddie (and Elizabeth, and by extension Ruby) from peaceful happiness. But, Ephram reminded himself, that was then. There wasn’t a wisp of those thoughts anymore; they’d been drawn out of him.  
  
He didn’t really have any words to greet this reassurance with, but Ephram shoved against Freddie harder – if he wasn’t actively trying to bowl his fairy over, Freddie was more than able to handle Ephram pushing at him for affection like an anxious Great Dane – and nodded against his lover’s neck. "I'm glad." Once Freddie had capitulated and allowed that Ephram had done the best out of the three of them, he was mollified but more pressingly was putting his full attention to when Freddie ventured tenderly into a reference about Bahraman. It was a balancing act for Freddie, Ephram felt; he would bring up fond memories of his nanny, the only bright points in his neglected childhood, but if anybody else broached the subject of his nanny then Freddie would get tetchy and brusque.  
  
But this was a happy memory, at least, and Ephram wriggled in Freddie’s lap as he lay his lands on random places of Freddie’s overworked body. Feeling for the cooling heat of the skin, or places where there was still a hectic fever that would hurt for a while. “Such a good boy,” Ephram murmured, in relation to both Freddie being taken to the movies as a boy and his adherence to Ephram’s demand that he not allow his fairy dust to heal him up at full power.  
  
“It was one of my favourites. Momma taped it off the teevee but with all the commercials so I got to know those too.” He took one of Freddie’s hands on his waist, moving it more towards his spine. “Hold me tighter, please. Mmmm, yeah – I was upset bout Artax, but in the end I’m more like the kid who was reading the book than like Atreyu.” Ephram rocked gently, fully aware of what pain this must be causing Freddie, and said, “You’re special. You’re everything.” He kissed Freddie, sucking on his bottom lip. “You’re _mine_ , kitten.”  
  
“I am too, sweetheart,” Freddie said as Ephram pushed against him - his husband’s expressions of love, and his want for affection, always a little more animal when emotions ran high - tightening his sore muscles enough to absorb the force of each nudge and nuzzle.  
  
The bed was a mess, decorated with damp smears of blood and semen, the sweaty sheets rucked up and tangled - Freddie, obviously, sitting in the worst of it - and the fairy couldn’t help but think that it looked precisely how his body felt. Because it took conscious effort to fight his biology, especially with the extra oomph provided by the jewel seed in his belly - but Freddie, even in his fatigue, was managing it; keeping himself aching and bleeding and tender because he knew that that was what Ephram wanted.  
  
And now that he was calming down - his tears dried, and the wounded turmoil between them ebbing away - he felt the steady throb of his arse as acutely as if Ephram had only just pulled out seconds before.  
  
He would feel it for days, like this.  
  
Yet it still felt wonderful to have his husband’s hands on him.  
  
And as mystifying as it might have seemed to anyone else, anyone outside of what they shared, when Ephram told him that he was a good boy, his voice warm and approving, Freddie let out a barely audible moan from the back of his throat, his softened cock stirring again.  
  
The fairy did as he was told when he was instructed to hold his husband tighter, wrapping his arms around him and gritting his teeth as his witch began to rock in his lap; that particular motion - gentle though it was - only aggravating and intensifying the soreness of his savaged hole. “I was never like either of them,” he breathed, “I just knew that I liked the idea that everything could be recreated… that a single grain of sand was enough to build on…”  
  
But when Ephram kissed him, telling Freddie all the things that he loved best to hear, the things he tucked away in the deepest part of his heart and held the tightest to, the moan that escaped him this time was anything but quiet. “I’m yours,” he breathed into Ephram’s mouth. Knowing it. Believing it.  
  
“…and you’re _mine_.”  
  
“Of course you’d like that aspect,” Ephram nodded. “It’s what you did yourself, honey. Took that single grain of sand you and Ollie left home with and built yourself a whole galaxy.” He bit gently at Freddie’s nose. “Moonchild.”  
  
Ephram’s voice was full of admiration, as it tended to be whenever he thought of Freddie being turned out of his unloving home and having to make his own way in the world. “I’ll never understand,” he murmured in the middle of his thought. “How you was so strong, Freddie, so brave when you was only young, to figure out how to survive without nobody to support you.” For Ephram, who’d been surrounded by various permutations of family for most of his life, the thought was enough to make him shudder.  
  
He bore down a little harder and then held there, sitting up straight in Freddie’s lap and clasping his hands at the nape of the fairy’s neck. “I’m gonna learn it all,” Ephram promised. “Might take me the rest of my life, but I swear I will, Freddie. All of the good things that happened to you and all of the bad. I want everything.”  
  
Easing back carefully, Ephram undid the chain around Freddie’s ankle (but not the shackle this time), picking him up and carrying him to the bathroom. Their house had been enchanted in every which way to make life more luxurious – thanks to Freddie’s wallet, of course – and the big tub filled with lukewarm water in a matter of seconds. He lowered his husband into the bath, growling a little to see the swirl of blood that instantly ribboned through the water. “You just sit and relax,” Ephram ordered. “I’ll wash you the way I want.”  
  
Tipping some sort of horrifyingly expensive scented lathering oil thing onto a sea sponge, Ephram scrunched it a few times to get it sudsy and started sponging Freddie’s head, over his hair and paying attention to every crevice behind his pointed ears and along his collarbones. “I’m proud of you,” Ephram said, shifting on the side of the tub and hitching one side of his jeans up. “For making it through that conversation. I know it weren’t easy for you, and it ain’t something you’re used to, making yourself that vulnerable, but the fact that you did it for me means a … it means a whole helluva lot.”  
  
Freddie smiled, huffing out a soft chuckle as Ephram bit his nose, renaming him Moonchild - but he shook his head slightly at his husband’s praise, never quite able to believe or accept that what he had done at sixteen was anything particularly noteworthy. “You give me too much credit, sweetheart,” he said, “Survival is hardwired in everyone. It’s just… what you do, isn’t it? And compared to some - compared to _you_ , and what you had to get through…” Freddie shook his head again, then gave his witch a smile. “I am proud of where I got to, though,” he said, “What I did with what I had.”  
  
He leaned up and brushed his lips across Ephram’s, murmuring, “But it means the world that you see those things when you look at me, love, since I’ve never known anyone stronger or braver than you.”  
  
The fairy bit his lip, trying to stifle a small grunt of pain, when Ephram shifted his weight a little more, bearing down just that little bit harder - before his lips turned up again at the promise, a raw sort of openness and devotion in his eyes as he nodded. “I know you will,” he said, “I want that too, sweetheart. I want to give you everything…”  
  
And he watched, not really sure what was happening, as the chain was detached from his shackle, leaving him untethered; then groaned softly as he was lifted up, his worn and aching body protesting the movement even as he hooked his arms around his husband’s neck. And when Ephram lowered him into the water, Freddie let out a sharp hiss of pain before almost melting into the fragrant warmth - a small shiver of pleasure crawling up his spine at the sound his witch made at the sight of his diffusing blood. It was the easiest thing in the world to simply do as he was told; sitting still and letting the comfort seep into his bones as Ephram began to bathe him.  
  
His eyes were closed to avoid the sting of the sweet-smelling lather, the sponge a steady and gentle presence against his skin, when Ephram told him that he was proud of him for not retreating from their conversation, as hard and hurtful and frightening as he found it to face those kinds of emotions. But at the sound of his lover’s voice, the fairy lifted a hand up out of the water to clear his face, blinking for a moment, water droplets clinging to his eyelashes, as he looked up to meet Ephram’s eyes. “No,” he said seriously, “-it wasn’t easy. But it was important.”  
  
Freddie caught Ephram’s hand and held it for a moment. “You’re the most important thing in my life, love,” he said softly, “-and you deserve better than easy.”  
  
Ephram held still while Freddie talked, making no attempt to remove his hand from his fairy’s grip. “Well then,” he said seriously, “reckon I got exactly what I deserve, because honey – there’s only one way that you’re easy.”  
  
Laughing, Ephram dropped the sponge in the water, getting up and shucking his clothes to stork his way into the bathtub behind Freddie. Pulling him close, Ephram grasped for the sponge again and began soaping Freddie’s wings (or at least the parts that were available to reach). “Just so’s we’re clear,” he murmured, watching delicate frills of lather trail across Freddie’s smooth skin, “I ain’t a man who gives credit where it ain’t due. There’s plenty people in this world who suss out what they’s facing and decide they _don’t_ wanna do what it takes to survive. I ain’t no different from them, not in the long run, it’s only that I _had_ to survive because of this thing what I got lurking inside of me.”  
  
Leaving off sponging for a moment, Ephram wrapped his arms around Freddie and hooked his chin over his lover’s shoulder. “You coulda topped yourself anytime, if you got drove that far. But you didn’t,” he said, pensive but not morose, especially since he added, “…and what’s more is with you around, dumplin’, I got plenty to _want_ to survive for now.” Ephram turned his head slightly to kiss behind Freddie’s pointed ear.

“I wanna be around you for a long, long time.”


End file.
